Wheels of Fortune
by The Death of Mayflies
Summary: A string of strange thefts just before the famous AM chariot races have Vimes and Co struggling to keep up... Please RnR!
1. 1

This is the Discworld, skidding through the metaphysical gravel on the outer verge of the probability curve. And everyone knows what happens when you hit a curve a little too fast . . .  
  
It was a fine autumn day. The Disc's lazy sunlight glowed in a multitude of attractive shades as it hit the morning smog over Ankh-Morpork. Upstairs in a large, squat stone house in Pseudopolis Yard His Grace the Duke of Ankh, Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of Ankh-Morpork's City Watch, sat in his office gazing out of the window. He was looking with unseeing eyes at the square, where the wind was bullying dead leaves. He had been sitting there for quite some time.  
  
Funny, he noted, how the blues would come in all sorts of shades of red, yellow and brown. Vimes often felt peculiar at this time of the year. "Brung low", as Fred Colon would have put it. But maybe it was unfair to blame the universe for his moodiness.  
  
The fact was that he quite often yearned to be back on the streets, and these days all he seemed to be doing was push paper around - alright, avoiding that very task at all cost, but still - and order other watchmen to do proper watch things, like go on patrols. And even that was taken care of by Carrot most of the time, who did it a lot better than he did, he reluctantly admitted to himself.  
  
So where did that leave him? And what? He was a figurehead now, a puppet brought out for gala dinners and parades, and he didn't like that. Not one bit. He felt boxed in, unable to do anything but comply with the demands of an uncaring society. Muttering to himself, he reluctantly got back to the paperwork at hand. The races were upon them again, with all that that entailed. Now what was this from Lord Vetinari?  
  
-----  
  
A couple of minutes later Sergeant Colon knocked on the open door. Then he stood with a nervous look on his face and waited in the doorway to his commander's office. Fred Colon wasn't one of life's natural born thinkers, but even he could see that there was going to be trouble.  
  
To begin with, his superior officer hadn't even looked up from his paperwork after he had entered the room, and that in itself was a bad sign. Mister Vimes had little time for paperwork, he knew, and if there was something important enough for him to overcome his distaste, then it was sure to be something bad. That, combined with what Colon had to report today, would surely mean trouble, and if there was something the sergeant had learnt through the years, then it was that trouble was - well, trouble. Ok, so it wasn't the most enlightened insight, but it had served him well enough during his time in the Watch.  
  
After what seemed like a small eternity, Vimes looked up from the paper he had in front of him. His was the face of a man who had not only fallen on hard times sometime in the past, but also on an assortment of cobbles, bar room floors, and gutters. He was a hard man who really deserved his inherited nickname "Old Stoneface". On some days it didn't seem to matter that his days as "a collection of bad habits marinated in Bearhugger's Whisky" were over and that he was now one of the richest men in Ankh- Morpork. His flinty-eyed look couldn't be disguised any more than you could the business end of a sword. You could put it in a jewel-encrusted sheath, but it would still be a sword, lethal and distinctly unfriendly. The sergeant tensed. This was obviously one of those days.  
  
"That bastard . . ." Vimes muttered, before seeming to realise that he wasn't alone. His jaw unclamped ever so slightly around the unlit cigar in his mouth when he laid eyes on Colon.  
  
"Fred. What's new on the street then?" he asked, obviously trying hard to sound more light-hearted than he felt.  
  
"Ye Gods, on days such as this I almost wish we were back to the bad old days again."  
  
Years back, the Watch had been small and insignificant, with just him, Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs trying to get through the nights without doing anything stupid, like dying. Then Carrot had come along, and suddenly the Watch was a force to be reckoned with in Ankh-Morpork. Vimes had been created a Duke, had been promoted to Commander of a Watch that now counted over two hundred men and had married the richest woman in the city along the way.  
  
Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs hadn't been promoted as such, but the Patrician had showed them his appreciation for their help during that whole business with the war between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch by suggesting to Vimes that they be given the job of controlling traffic in the city[1]. This meant that they could stay out of trouble and were given a nice extra income, since fines could be paid immediately to the Watchman who charged the culprit, at the crime scene. This had done much for the two coppers' private economy, and had had the added benefit that the merest glimpse of the two of them approaching now was enough to disperse enormous traffic jams in the city.  
  
Lately however, not all had been well. Some of the poshest sports carts in the city had been vandalised under mysterious circumstances. Of course, those vehicles belonged to some of the city's most prosperous citizens, and they now demanded action. All in all, this meant that Fred's and Nobby's cosy existence as the Discworld's only existing traffic cops had vanished as quickly as it had come. All of a sudden they were in the spotlight, and that spotlight was wielded by people who were to people like Colon and Nobbs what mean-spirited kids with magnifying glasses were to ants. Bad news.  
  
Speaking of which, Colon thought, maybe it would be better to just show Mister Vimes instead of telling him. After all, those newspaper people supposedly had a way with words that he had never aspired to[2].  
  
"I think you had better take a look at this, sir," he said, handing over the morning edition of the Ankh-Morpork Inquirer.  
  
"Also, there is a wizard in the reception who insists he wants to talk to you."  
  
"What? What does a wizard want with us? He'll have to wait. Let's see, now. 'Rain of Frog in Klatch'? But you know that's just Dibbler's way of being liberal with the truth. Anyway, just one frog doesn't seem . . ."  
  
Vimes stopped. Looked further down. Looked back up slowly, then down again, re-reading the other headline, and then the entire article.  
  
"Oh, really?" he growled, the iron grip on his cigar suddenly back with a vengeance.  
  
"This stinks to Cori Celesti, if you ask me. Show Sergeant Angua this and then send her over to the newspaper to see what she can sniff out, would you?" He smiled grimly.  
  
"I have to make an appearance at the Palace, it would seem."  
  
-----  
  
The Ankh-Morpork Inquirer was located in cramped quarters in a house on Gleam Street. The gigantic presses where the actual newspapers where made stood in the cellars of the building, but the neural centre of the operation was located upstairs. Some would challenge this view, claiming that it would take a complete lack of brain activity to produce such trash as the Inquirer did. In fact, coming up with the kind of incredible stories that the Inquirer ran took a particular kind of genius, and Dibbler certainly had what it took.  
  
The noise in the room was deafening, not only because it was sitting virtually on top of a huge heap of rumbling machinery, but also mainly because the people in the room were news people. As such they were never anywhere lower than one notch below "hysterical" on the sanity scale. Editors shouted at reporters, who in turn hollered at secretaries, who then just screamed. The cacophony was such that you could have put a howling wolf in the middle of it all and it would have gone unnoticed for quite some time. That was basically what had happened now. Angua cleared her throat.  
  
Dibbler looked up. He immediately noticed the visitor, standing in the door to the reception. This was not surprising. What was surprising was that no one else had spotted the curvaceous blond with the wind-tussled hair before him. Sergeant Angua, dressed in her armour, was a sight that not many men would miss. Watchmen normally had muscle-shaped brass plates protecting their torsos. In Angua's case that had been unthinkable for two obvious reasons[3], and so she had taken hers to the Street of Cunning Artificers, where, after two hours[4] she had re-emerged onto the streets of Ankh- Morpork. Stories abound of magical swords with all sorts of powers, but Angua was the proud owner of the only chest plate known to prevent crimes from happening just by appearing.  
  
"Good morning, good morning", Dibbler said, sliding up to her in his habitual way.  
  
"Constable Angua, isn't it? Always a pleasure meeting a representative of our glorious Watch. Care to comment on the rumours concerning the existence of a werewolf on the force?"  
  
Angua had encountered C.M.O.T. Dibbler's infamous sausages almost immediately upon her arrival in Ankh-Morpork. No one had warned her of them beforehand, and so she had foolishly decided to try a half-eaten one while she was under the influence[5]. She knew that she could only be killed by silver, but now and then she wished that that wasn't so. That had been such an experience. If she hadn't been on all fours already, she would have been in no time. So Angua was not a friend of Dibbler's. Even so, she smiled. No. If she was honest, she smiled just because of that. She saw Dibbler take in what she knew began as an attractive smile, and noted with great satisfaction how he then spotted the slightly too long, slightly too sharp incisors. Before he had regained his mental balance, she had asked her question.  
  
-----  
  
Vimes entered the antechamber in the Patrician's palace with the newspaper in his pocket and his usual reluctance written on his face. He always made a point of not smartening up before coming here, his dusty, worn uniform helping him to remember who and what he was. Today, the autumn winds had helped him achieve that slightly dishevelled look.  
  
The Rats chamber was empty, so he closed the door softly behind him. The doors to the Oblong Office were ever so slightly ajar, and so he peeked in through the gap. He looked around the room, scanning the faces of the assembled group of people, and felt the muscles in his neck tense like piano wires. Well, he thought to himself, that seems about right.  
  
The Patrician was nowhere to be seen, but around the room a number of snobbishly clad young men were looking at one another through their nostrils. This may or may not have explained their voices, which were nasal, but not the fact that they seemed to be speaking at one another rather than with each other.  
  
"I don't think that he has the nerve to show up . . ." spluttered one gangly fellow in the general direction of a terribly spotty youth not a meter away from where Vimes was hiding.  
  
"It's an outrage that he is allowed to continue to run that motley crew of so-called watch men . . ." another young man with outrageous hair seemed to be saying to no one in particular.  
  
"We should demand that he hands in his resignation! Disgraceful is what it is!!", a third one chimed in. This one was dressed in pea coloured tights.  
  
"That imp-like creature and the fat one stopped me for speeding and then they gave me a parking ticket . . .! And me one of the best racers in town, too" the first one offered up again.  
  
"Watch 'Men', hah! They employ trolls! You can't tell me that that's right. Filthy scum! One was "directing" the traffic on Broad Way only yesterday . . ." brayed the one with the hairdo.  
  
Having personally put Detritus in charge of traffic control in that particular hot spot, Vimes was half smiling at the last comment when a subtle change in the air caused him to turn around. Lord Vetinari was standing right behind him, clad in his usual black attire and ditto expressionless face. Gods knew how long he had stood there. The door that Vimes had come through remained closed, but then the Patrician did move in mysterious ways.  
  
"Sir Samuel. How kind of you to come at such short notice." the Patrician said quietly before wrinkling his nose ever so slightly in disapproval of Vimes' dusty clothes and stubbly chin.  
  
"Such very short notice, it would seem. I see you have already noticed that I have taken the liberty of summoning the other interested parties, too. Shall we?"  
  
Vimes, knowing that the Patrician was lethal at any time, and more so the politer he was, didn't say anything. Instead he simply handed over the newspaper, much the same way Colon had twenty minutes earlier.  
  
Vetinari scanned the page, his eyes darting back and forth like .303 bookworms on speed, reaching the bottom in a matter of seconds.  
  
"Aha. Yes. Very interesting. And just the one frog? How fascinating . . ."  
  
He looked up at Vimes with a faint smile on his habitually sombre face. Then he swung open the door and indicated to Vimes that he should go in first. The Oblong Office fell silent.  
  
-----  
  
Mister Vimes hadn't instructed Colon on what Angua should do about things, but that didn't matter to her. A heads on approach seemed to be the best way to tackle prey like Dibbler, she figured. This was unusual enough for her not to know of any other way, anyhow.  
  
"Well?" she insisted, "How did you do it?"  
  
"Er . . ." Dibbler wasn't used to being lost for words, but the unnerving sight of this amazon coupled with the admittedly strange nature of her question had thrown him completely off track. He wouldn't have been Dibbler, though, if he hadn't rallied quickly. He turned to a dwarf that was coming down a narrow staircase.  
  
"Gimletsson, that story on Vimes and the cart thief came in with the first clacks this morning, didn't it?"  
  
"Yes, boss. Straight from the Patrician's palace, together with the usual stuff" The dwarf nodded in confirmation and hurried on downstairs.  
  
Dibbler turned to Angua with a triumphant look on his ratty face.  
  
"This is the Century of the Fruitbat, you know", he said. With an expansive gesture he showed off the walls of the room, where posters of all kinds of events were displayed, as if to indicate that all these chariot races, football matches, markets and wanted-posters[6] were his personal success- stories.  
  
"We stay on top of things here at the Inquirer!"  
  
It was anyone's guess who would usher Dibbler into the next world when that time came, Death or the Death of Rats. What was less uncertain was that he was getting closer and closer to finding out the answer to this question, judging from Angua's expression and the distinctly sharper look of her finely manicured fingernails.  
  
"Mister Dibbler, you're not listening to what I'm saying", she said anew, her patience visibly disappearing as she repeated her question again. "How is it possible that you are running a news story based on the outcome of a meeting before that meeting has even occurred?"  
  
-----  
  
Vimes stepped into the Oblong Office with more confidence than he felt. He wasn't sure if Vetinari would let him take the fall for this or not, but he was damned if he was going to let these . . . these brats feel that they had a case against him.  
  
Vetinari went behind his desk and sat down.  
  
"Gentlemen, I'm sure your time is valuable to you. Shall we begin?"  
  
Vimes gave the three young men a hard stare. Spoilt snobs, he thought. Young colts, strutting their stuff. Never had to work a day in their lives. Spending their days drinking, carousing, gambling and racing. Privileged people with not an ounce of compassion between them[7]. The aristocrats, feeling Vimes's eyes on them, tried to hold their ground and failed.  
  
"It's an outrage", the hairdo spluttered suddenly, "We've all paid our Thieves' Guild fees, and what does the so-called Watch do? Nothing!"  
  
"My thoughts exactly!" the green clad one contributed, "If we must put up with having these people patrolling our streets, then at least they could make themselves useful and catch these vandals!"  
  
"We know our rights!!!", the third man screeched.  
  
"Lord Herrington, Lord Rust, Mr. Dingleberry, if you would be so kind as to state your case a little more coherently, I am sure that the Commander of the Watch would take a keen interest in your difficulties" Vetinari said, softly as a sheet of silk over a samurai blade.  
  
"These people", Vimes noted quietly to himself. In some mouths that particular combination of two innocent words was worse than any insult could ever hope to be. And you could almost hear the triple exclamation marks in the third fellow's voice. No stable person sounded like that.  
  
"We feel sure that it must be a cart jacker!" The third man, whom Vimes now recognised as Hubert Dingleberry Jr., sole heir to the Dingleberry fortune, reminded him of a rabid poodle he remembered seeing a couple of years ago.  
  
"Surely you will agree that such a crime would require you to be in your vehicle when it was stolen? I understand that this was not the case," Vetinari said, his voice a pool of tranquillity.  
  
"If you remember, sir, we did have the case with Rip 'the Jacker' a couple of years ago, although he wasn't a thief" Vimes offered, with a face that could have entered the Disc Championship in Cripple Mr. Onion and won.  
  
"Yes, thank you, Commander."  
  
"Mind you, he and 'Overcoat Bob' got into real trouble with the Baker Street Irregulars a while back. Last I heard he was singing the soprano in the choir in the Temple of Small God-"  
  
"Yes, thank you, Commander" Vetinari interjected with some force.  
  
Someone cleared his throat.  
  
"Now look, the bunburys start this weekend, and there is going to be a public outcry if the three of us cannot compete", said Herrington, who seemed the least upset of the young men.  
  
"Like I said, gentlemen, the Commander of the Watch will personally see to it that your problems are taken care of. Now, do not let me detain you any further."  
  
With an ever so slight gesture the Patrician indicated that the audience was over, and all of his visitors made their way towards the door with feelings of relief and irritation jostling for pole position. Vimes was just about to walk out the familiar doors when a voice came from behind, like an assassin's dagger in the night.  
  
"Sir Samuel, if you could stay another moment?"  
  
----------------------- [1] And suggestions from the Patrician were not to be confused with other people's suggestions, which could be safely ignored. He would use irony on you if you did. [2] Even after a long, and mostly happily, married life in which intra- marital communication was based on little notes, quickly scribbled and left for the other spouse on the kitchen table. [3] Well, they are, ok? Look, I'm not going to spell it out for you, all right? Titillation's the name of the game . . . *groan* [4] Including the substantial amount of time the blacksmith had spent submerging himself in the vat of icy water he normally used for cooling red- hot pieces of iron . . . [5] Not by alcohol, funnily enough. Not at all . . . [6] Wanted-posters were a little different in Ankh-Morpork. They were issued by the Thieves' Guild, and there were two kinds. One was used to advertise the guild in order to attract new recruits. The other one was the more traditional variety, but featured unlicensed thieves only, and didn't offer the traditional choice between dead or alive. The Watch simply didn't have the money to compete with the Guild . . . [7] Think American Psycho goes Ankh-Morpork . . . 


	2. 2

It was half an hour later, and both Vimes and Angua were back in the new Watch headquarters. Vimes had returned from the Patrician's palace with the newspaper still in his hand and a thoughtful look on his face and had ordered her and the newly appointed sergeants Cheery Littlebottom and Detritus to a meeting in his office on the double.  
  
In accordance with the fourth law of universal policing they all brought their preferred drinks from the cafeteria on the first floor to the meeting. This meant that Vimes's office saw Angua carefully sipping on a fruit juice, while Cheery stirred her Klatchian coffee with lots of milk, and Detritus loomed in the background with a can of Lava Boy[1]. Vimes didn't drink anything, preferring instead to toy with a cigar.  
  
He wished that Carrot had been here. The lad was so damn likeable that even first class arseholes like those snobs Vimes had encountered in the palace were putty in his hands. But unfortunately Carrot was away for three weeks visiting his foster parents, so that wasn't an option. He would have to make do with what he had. The whole business was strange, though.  
  
Instead of winding him up the way he usually did under similar circumstances, the Patrician had ordered him, Vimes, to put his highest- ranking officers on the case. And he had stressed that they'd take care of it personally, too. His highest ranking officers, that was Captain Carrot, and Sergeants Angua, Cheery, Detritus and Colon, but Vetinari had specifically said that Colon's skills were probably put to better use preserving the status quo in the watch office[2].  
  
With Carrot away, that left himself, a werewolf, a dwarf and a troll to deal with matters. Vimes almost smiled. 'Those people', that brat had said, and those were the people he was going to get.  
  
It had dawned on him that His Lordship never, ever did anything without good reason, and that maybe his showing the newspaper to Vetinari had changed the outcome of the meeting quite considerably.  
  
He looked at it again. "Watch Commander Jacked Off!" the headline screamed from the front page.  
  
The corresponding article reported in no uncertain terms of how the recent spats of cart jackings, chariot thefts and acts of vandalism were a source of concern to various influential pillars of society. The bunburys were threatened by this development, it was claimed, and the report went on to suggest that the aforementioned pillars had demanded that the Watch was reorganised in order to better the chances of catching the perpetrators, and that the Patrician had agreed to do so. This, it concluded, probably meant that someone else would soon replace the Commander of the Watch.  
  
Very odd, he thought. Who would send something like this to the newspaper, and why? The men who had actually come to the Patrician with their complaints would certainly not leave any stone unturned to get Vimes thrown out, but in their world there were certain rules. He knew the type: rich and arrogant, the lot of them. Hell-raisers in their youth, they followed in their fathers' arrogant footsteps, trampling little people who had the bad fortune of crossing their paths, before finally retiring to one of the gentlemen's clubs in Esoteric Street[3].  
  
To stoop to something so base as a newspaper - something read by the rabble - to get something done was not the done thing in these people's view. And anyway, the newspaper people had got hold of the story before the meeting had ended, and ended quite differently compared with what and the Inquirer had printed. Come to think of it, even calling it "cart jacking" was wrong, wasn't it?  
  
Placing the cigar between his teeth he raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question to Angua.  
  
"Dibbler didn't have anything to do with this. I could tell", she said. "He didn't have a smell of guilt about him. Not any more than usual, that is," she corrected herself.  
  
"Also, I checked with the person who had received the clack, and he hadn't suspected anything either. Apparently they get their material from all sorts of different sources, and Dibbler obviously doesn't bother checking whether the stories are correct or not. He just picks out the best ones and puts them in the paper."  
  
Vimes nodded silently. I bet he does, he thought. 'All the news that's fit to print' was the device the Inquirer sported underneath the logotype on its front page, and Dibbler obviously had his own views on how to interpret that. But Vimes was equally sure that Angua had got the right take on things. The Watch didn't have a lie detector as such, but with a nose like Angua's they didn't need one.  
  
"Where was the clack sent from then? Did they at least remember that?"  
  
"This one came in a batch from the Main Tower, they said. Sorry, sir."  
  
Vimes swore under his breath. The Main Tower was handling an enormous amount of information every day, and there was little or no chance of them knowing the origins of one specific message. So much for that thought. Vimes leaned forward.  
  
"OK, people," he said. "According to his lordship we have to give priority to this case because of the annual bunburys."  
  
"The what?" said Cheery, who didn't take a great interest in such matters.  
  
"The chariot races at the Hippo," Vimes replied, courtly. "Which by the way we are also in charge of security for, but that's a question we can deal with later."  
  
He looked at his - for want of a better word - men.  
  
"OK, people, listen up. We have an unlicensed thief running around steeling bits of chariots from the rich buggers who are competing in the bunburys this weekend. More likely than not it is one of the drivers doing away with the competition.  
  
"You know I don't like mysteries and I don't like wasting our time with petty thefts, and this looks like it could win prizes in both categories, so let's just get it done and over with. Has anyone heard anything on the streets?"  
  
There was a knock on the door then, and lance-constable Visit poked his head into the room.  
  
"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought you might like to know that Mr. Slant of the Lawyers' Guild has been here to see you. Also, there is someone else in the reception who demands to see you personally."  
  
"Godsdamnit! I told Dorfl that we weren't to be disturbed! Who is it, then?"  
  
"A wizard, sir. Well, I say wizard, but in truth he is an ungodly prophet of a cult of unholy knowledge-[4]"  
  
"So he's from the University. So what? I bet he's here to try and flog us more of those magic signs that glow in the dark; last time one of them buggers came around to demonstrate one it singed Sergeant Colon's eyebrows right off when it blew up!"  
  
That was a little unfair, and Vimes knew it. The university faculty didn't engage in commercial venues of any kind. But occasionally there were other, less successful representatives of the occult society who tried to turn a dollar with their skills, peddling flawed merchandise to the easily fooled, and that's when it got dangerous. Colon had had a close shave[5], but it had been a million to one chance.  
  
" But sir-"  
  
"No buts. Tell him he can talk to Colon if he can't wait. Dismissed, constable!"  
  
"Yessir," said Visit with a glum face, and closed the door behind him.  
  
"So. As I was saying. Has anyone heard anything about these thefts? Littlebottom? Detritus?"  
  
"Nosir," Littlebottom said gruffly. "Me and Sergeant Detritus have been busy investigating that troll murder down at the docks last night, remember? 'Forensic mineralogy', you called it."  
  
"Yeah," Detritus rumbled. "'Dat's a real case, not dumb stuff like dis!"  
  
"Look, Mister Vimes, neither of us are very happy about this," Cheery said. "We have a beheaded troll in the morgue. Not even Igor can figure out how that happened, and now all of a sudden we have to drop it for a couple of cart thefts?"  
  
This threw Vimes a little. He had only got the briefest of reports before leaving last night. He had been on a fourteen hour shift, and had been about to fall asleep on his feet when he walked home, but even so he felt a pang of guilt for not having paid more attention.  
  
"Beheaded? What in the world could behead a troll?"  
  
"Some sort of acid, according to Igor, sir. He wasn't sure what it was, but he is still working on the case. We haven't found the head, either."  
  
"At least dat troll got to roll", said Detritus with a scowl. His toothache was getting worse. He put down his drink with a grimace.  
  
"I didn't know it was that bad," Vimes admitted, "but we have to follow orders. Those three families have more power in this city than even the Patrician can ignore."  
  
Even as he said it he wondered if it was true. But what choice did they have? Vetinari had been very clear on what he wanted the Watch to do, and Vimes had been too preoccupied with the newspaper mystery to argue.  
  
"Anyway, with people being as crazy about the Hippo races as they are, there will probably be rioting in the streets if those fools can't compete this weekend, and we don't want that, do we?" he added.  
  
Cheery looked aghast. "They actually use hippos in the races?!"  
  
"No, the races are held at the Hippodrome, Sergeant," said Vimes, somewhat less patiently. "Now, doesn't anyone have any ideas?"  
  
"I spoke with No Way José a couple of days ago, sir," Angua said. "He denied everything, of course."  
  
Despite the general mood in the room everyone smiled a little. No Way José always did deny everything. That's how he had got his name. But then, with Angua, the spoken word always played second fiddle to the prima donna of odours. If José genuinely didn't know anything, then that was probably true for the rest of the city's professional squealers, too.  
  
"It may be a good idea to talk to Doughnut Jimmy, sir," offered Cheery, despite herself. "He knows everyone who has anything to do with horses."  
  
"All right. Good idea, Littlebottom." Vimes brightened a little. "Nothing else? Then I want you to get over to the crime scenes and try to get some idea of who's done it. We'll start with that today, and take it from there."  
  
He scanned his officers for a moment.  
  
"We don't know what we're looking for, so keep your eyes and ears open for anything unusual. Angua, you take Herrington; Cherry and Detritus, go check out the Dingleberry Estate. I'll be sure to have a little chat with my old friend Lord Rust. Oh, and no-one is to talk to the press about this. Especially not to Mr. Dibbler. Refer them to me. That's all for now."  
  
As the rest of the Watch trooped out, Vimes sat back in his chair. In spite of everything it would be good to get back out onto the streets again. With a small sigh he sat back and lit his cigar.  
  
-----  
  
More than thirty miles away, at that exact moment, another cigar was lit.  
  
This one was a lot cheaper than the one Vimes was enjoying, but that was because the main reason for this cigar was to keep the flies away from the smoker, and flies in general tend to be less discerning about their tobacco. The smoker in question was Humbert Sikes, and he was Head Driver for Bell & Jingle Caravans, one of the many companies specialising in hauling goods to and from Ankh-Morpork.  
  
The caravans trundled on through the surrounding cabbage fields at an amiable speed of two miles per hour. When they reached the less civilized countries[6] closer to the Hub the merchants would sell their cheaply manufactured goods in exchange for raw material such as wood, minerals and fat, which would then be sent to Ankh-Morpork.  
  
Almost every day there was a large caravan, with pairs of oxen pulling trains of two wagons carrying four tons apiece. When the wagons were carrying more expensive goods there would be guards along for the ride, but most of the time the trips were pleasantly uneventful. That meant that the Head Drivers' work was very simple indeed, and Humbert Sikes saw no reason to complain. It was a good job, he thought to himself. A man could do a lot worse in life.  
  
This close to Ankh-Morpork there were never any highwaymen these days[7], so Sikes half-dozed in the chilly autumn sun, relying on his oxen to find their way to the inn. It was where they always spent the second night of the trip, and Sikes was already looking forward to the artery-clogging grub he would get. Behind him, four other drivers passed the time in similar fashion.  
  
----------------------- [1] Detritus had been trying to get back with Ruby lately, and the troll soft drink promised that it would "Get de Ladies' Troll On a Roll". So far it hadn't been a success. The fizzy concoction was making his diamond teeth ache. [2] The status quo being a state of constant chaos . . . [3] "Gentleman" being anyone who could afford the 500 Dollars per year that a membership cost. [4] Constable Visit-the-infidels-with-explanatory-pamphlets was an Omnian, and had views on magic. [5] And then some. [6] Where people didn't bother to insult you or take your money before killing you. [7] Apart from the innkeepers, of course. 


	3. 3

Angua and Cheery were alone in the women's changing room after the meeting. Unlike the men's changing rooms, theirs was nice and didn't have that vague smell of oil and feet that permeates male locker rooms everywhere. It was somewhere they both went now and then when they needed to be alone. Right now, Angua was filing down her nails while Cheery was braiding her beard[1].  
  
"How come the chariot races are called bunburys, anyway?" asked Cheery, who had grown up in a mine where horses were unknown phenomena, and carts used exclusively for hauling ore out of the shafts.  
  
"I asked Carrot about it once", Angua replied, "Named after one of the men who started it all, he said."  
  
That wasn't true, strictly speaking. Carrot had taken her for one of his long walks through town in the beginning of their courtship, such as it was, and they had ended up by the Hippo, the city's ancient hippodrome. She could still hear his voice now, full of innocent enthusiasm for everything.  
  
"Apparently the origins of the name bunbury goes back all the way to when the first race was instigated by two rich enthusiasts, over two hundred years ago" he had said, beaming in that irresistibly boyish way of his.  
  
"They contributed equally to the financing and organisation, and then agreed that they would toss a coin to decide who should give his name to the races. Sir Charles Bunbury won, and the races have been called bunburys ever since."  
  
"And what became of the other fellow?" she had asked, fascinated despite herself by Carrot's encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Ankh-Morpork.  
  
"I don't remember, actually," Carrot had admitted, a little sheepishly.  
  
"His name was Edward Stanley, I think. Twelfth earl of something or another." He broke off, unaccustomed to not remembering a name.  
  
"An important lesson to us all, just the same," he concluded, the clouded look on his face gone and replaced by his habitually good-natured look. "To think that a man can stand to gain or lose such fame by a single throw of a coin.[2]"  
  
Angua sighed and returned to the present. Cheery was giving her an odd look.  
  
"Sorry," she said to her short friend, seeing the concern in the dwarf's eyes. "Just remembered something, that's all."  
  
-----  
  
Cherry and Angua parted when Angua went off to check the Watch files for more background information. Cheery met up with Detritus, and together they made their way through the back office, past the canteen, where various watchmen were luxuriating between shifts.  
  
The two of them were getting quite famous in the city, and several colleagues looked up from their issues of Bows & Ammo and called out friendly jibes as they passed them.  
  
Detritus was literally a chip off the old block, and Cheery one of the most modern dwarfs in Ankh-Morpork[3], but against all odds they made a splendid team. As they went past the weapon racks behind the reception area, Detritus started to walk over towards his personal shelf to get the Piecemaker[4]. Cheery put up a restraining hand.  
  
"I think it would be better if we showed up unarmed, don't you?" she said.  
  
"But you always bring dat axe," Detritus replied.  
  
"That's different - that's cultural," Cheery grinned. "After all, we're not going there to arrest anyone."  
  
"Maybe," Detritus sulked, "but Mister Vimes always says 'dey are all guilty."  
  
"I know, but I don't think they'd be stealing from themselves. Do you?"  
  
Detritus' teeth glinted in a way only a troll's can as he smiled, indicating that you could never be sure with some people, but he didn't argue. He had learnt to rely on Cheery's judgement in these matters. That and the fact that Cheery knew that she could trust in Detritus immense strength was what made them such a formidable duo. For a pair whose ancestors had done little but bash each other's brains out, they got along famously.  
  
Once outside the headquarters, the wind whipped Cheery's leather skirt as if getting even for a long held grudge. She pushed her helmet further down over her bullet shaped head and moved to the lee side of Detritus, who walked on unperturbed by the elements. If anything, Detritus was feeling better now that winter wasn't so far off any more[5].  
  
They walked past the opera house, where beggars and urchins were huddling in the archways, trying to stay clear of the cold winds, and over New Bridge[6]. The shops on the bridge hid them temporarily from the gales, and Cheery stopped at one of the food stalls for a moment, grateful to be out of the wind.  
  
"Maybe you're right, Detritus," she called out to her partner, "Maybe protection of some sort is called for, after all?"  
  
The proprietor of the shop was a dwarf, too, and after a quick exchange in Dwarfish he handed over a bundle to Cheery. It contained a couple of steaming hot rats covered in thick sauce. She grabbed it with both hands, and the two watchmen trundled on through the wind-swept streets towards Maudlin Bridge, with Cheery happily munching away.  
  
Once on Maudlin Bridge there were no shops lining the stone balustrade, and Cheery felt as if she would have to ask Detritus to hold on to her in order to ensure that she wasn't blown away. She gritted her teeth and chomped down the rat, relishing the warm food. They crossed the river quickly and once they arrived in the older and more prosperous part of town, it was just a matter of minutes before they reached Moon Pond Lane, where the Dingleberry family lived.  
  
The fabulous house with its high walls was situated right on the corner with Scoone Avenue, overlooking the cemetery. Cheery had heard Reg Shoe speak of the Dead Rights Movement more times than she cared to remember, and knew that he felt very strongly about forcing the vitally challenged into reserves, as he called it, but it seemed peaceful enough. More importantly, she figured, having dead next-door neighbours meant that the Dingleberries could have more privacy, a wish they were renowned for.  
  
Everyone in Ankh-Morpork knew about the Dingleberries.  
  
-----  
  
Sam Vimes closed the door to his office and started walking downstairs. Halfway down the staircase he stopped. The hubbub from the front room was reassuring as a background noise, but he wasn't too keen to dive straight into it. It was like having an ocean view, he reckoned. Nice to look at, and you might consider dipping your toes in it from time to time, but still a place where sharks lived and prospered. He heard the rumbling voices of a couple of upset trolls, the meticulous voice of Dorfl answering heated questions from someone he could only assume was the wizard, and Colon's barked orders to all and sundry, and knew that he couldn't deal with it all.  
  
Oh, well. There were other possibilities. For a moment he contemplated the possibility of leaving via the rooftops, but since that would entail passing the dovecotes he quickly reconsidered his options. Constable Visit was often found attending the dovecotes, where he preached the virtues of Omnianism to its uncaring inhabitants, and Vimes felt he couldn't bring himself to face the man and his explanatory pamphlets any more today.  
  
The back door, then. There was always the back door. He sneaked past the front room, past the changing rooms and the door down to the new cellblock, slid back the bolts on the sturdy oak door and stood outside, the cold wind in his face. Only there was something else there in the alley, too.  
  
-----  
  
The Dingleberries had been among the very first citizens of the Counterweight Continent to move to Ankh-Morpork, and had adapted remarkably well to life in the big city after a few initial cultural difficulties. The matter of the family name had been such a problem.  
  
Not wanting to appear different from the average citizen they had changed their very aristocratic Counterweight name and taken what they thought was a run-of-the-mill name. Only later did they discover that it was in fact more of a run-to-the-privy kind of name, and that they had been a laughing stock in the upper class neighbourhood they lived in for several years.  
  
People had stopped laughing now. The family had worked hard, copying Ankh- Morporkian concepts and perfecting them and selling the new, improved versions to the same people they had borrowed the ideas from in the first place. This had made them rich but not very popular with certain people.  
  
Ruined businessmen tried to have contracts taken out on their lives with the Assassins' Guild, but found that the guild members were strangely uninterested in what they were willing to offer, squabbling as they were over who would become holder of the newly instigated Dingleberry Chair of Counterweight Inhumation Techniques.  
  
Others tried employing common thugs to get rid of them. The Dingleberries solved this the way they had dealt with other business difficulties in the past, and upped the ante. When people hired hard men they employed considerably harder trolls and vampires as guards.  
  
Eventually, those unlucky enough to have come in their path had given up trying to get even, and the Dingleberries had been able to get on with what they did best, which was seizing business opportunities.  
  
They had been among the first to catch on to the importance and potential of the new clacks system, and had been instrumental in constructing the Great Branch that now stretched all the way to Uberwald. Rich to begin with[7], they were now immensely wealthy.[8]  
  
Their estates didn't exactly belie this fact. Cheery and Detritus stepped up to the enormous gates. An ornate bell handle in the shape of a hippo hung on a chain on one side. Cheery's hand reached out towards it.  
  
-----  
  
Vimes's hand moved on its own accord towards the face of the presumed attacker - and stopped. Mr. Slant of the Lawyer's Guild stood in front of him, impeccably dressed and seemingly unperturbed.  
  
"Your Grace? A moment of your time, if I may?"  
  
Vimes managed to regain both his physical and mental balance with great difficulty. Slant was a zombie, and could easily have ripped Vimes limb from limb, but even so, Vimes felt that he could at least have flinched at the onslaught.  
  
In spite of trying to hide it from him, Vimes was visibly shaken by the lawyer's presence. Not so much because of who it was - even though they had reasons enough to loath one another - but because he had forgotten to check beforehand if there was someone out there.  
  
The Assassin's Guild hadn't tried anything for quite some time now, but that was no reason to let yourself go soft like that. If you did, you had the same odds of survival as a lobster in a Genuan gumbo kitchen, but without the satisfaction that comes with the knowledge that you were about to die for a good course.  
  
"My, Mr. Slant, whatever are you doing out here in the cold? You look as if you're frozen, stiff!"  
  
The last comma was barely audible, but ensured that the sentence packed more of a punch with the lawyer than a mere wallop could ever have hoped to achieve. Vimes noted with satisfaction how the zombie recoiled slightly.  
  
"I assure you that you needn't worry yourself with my well-being, Your Grace. I'm sure you have other, more pressing problems to cop with."[9]  
  
"Oh no. I can assure you that I don't have a pun-ishing schedule at all," Vimes said, hammering home a point. "So what brings you here, Mr. Slant? Steeling from the poor and giving to the rich, as always, I presume?"  
  
"Very witty, Your Grace. As a matter of fact, I do seek to consult you in a matter concerning several thefts," Slant sniffed.  
  
"My clients, whom I believe you had the opportunity to hear earlier today, feel that the authorities are not handling their case in an appropriate manner. They have turned to me and my associates to ensure that this unfortunate state of affairs ceases."  
  
Ah. That made sense, Vimes thought. Slant was exactly the type of person a powerful family would turn to if they wanted dirt shovelled without having to soil their own hands with it.  
  
"So you're representing the lordlings and that little slanty-eyed turd? So what?"  
  
"I would kindly ask you to refrain from referring to my clients in such a derogatory manner, Your Grace. There is an offence called slander, as I am sure you are aware."  
  
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Vimes snorted. And I haven't mentioned anyone in particular, so you don't have anything to go on, he added to himself.  
  
The zombie contorted his features into something approaching a smile. "The altercation earlier this morning was uncalled for, Commander. Lambasting four young noblemen? Tut-tut. A glut of guts can land a man in penury very quickly[10]."  
  
"Anyway," Vimes continued, his features carefully composed. "If you look at it the other way around I'm sure there is no crime in calling a piece of crap 'Lord Rust' for instance, right?"  
  
Slant sighed. He didn't have to, of course, since he was dead, but some habits died harder than their owners did.  
  
"Your Grace, I wish you could understand the difference between my clients and the faecal matter to which you insist on referring."  
  
"So do I," Vimes growled. "Now if you don't have anything else to add, I have better things to do than spend time in a dark alley with an older gentleman such as yourself. People will talk, you know."  
  
As he turned around and walked away, Vimes had the pleasure of hearing the zombie trying to stutter a reply and failing.  
  
-----  
  
The troll who came out of the gatehouse didn't seem very friendly at all. In fact, Cheery was willing to bet that one of the reasons he had got his job was because he looked as if he woke up every day looking to get even with the world. He was big and burly, and by the look of things had been last in line when the Creator handed out necks. He seemed distinctly ill at ease in his livery, as if he wasn't suited for suits, or any other item of clothing, either.  
  
I wouldn't be surprised, Cheery thought, if this was exactly the kind of troll that the oldest sagas mention - the kind that lived in caves and had names like Org and Ugrk.  
  
The troll knuckled up to the gates and opened them a fraction of an inch, peering with distaste at them through the ornate iron bars.  
  
"Sergeant Littlebottom, City Watch," Cheery said, flashing her badge at the man. "Me and my fellow officer here are here to see Mr. Dingleberry."  
  
"I knows who you is, short-arse," the cave troll snorted, "and you and de rock can just grrrooggh-ooggrogh![11] Mr. Dingleberry don't deal with de lower races."  
  
Detritus stiffened and began saying something, but was cut off by Cheery's voice, smooth as Lancre honey.  
  
"I see. But Mr Dingleberry Jr. is interested in the races that are taking place this weekend at the Hippo, is he not? In fact, isn't he competing in those very races? And hasn't he got a problem with his chariot?"  
  
"Yeah? What's it to you, lawn ornament?"  
  
Org and Ugrk had passed the evolutionary test somehow. Cheery would have had them barred from the exam hall. She didn't normally loose her temper, but there is a limit to what even the most level-headed dwarf can take.  
  
She snatched her double-headed axe from its sling on her back and brought it up in one swift motion, letting it come to a shuddering stop inches away from the cave troll's nose.  
  
"How would you like it if I smashed your teeth with this?" she asked, vehemently.  
  
"Yeah," Detritus said evenly. "It would be one of dem dere axe-dental suspect injuries"  
  
----------------------- [1] That may sound like less than appropriate behaviour for members of the Watch, but for Angua, it was something she had to do quite regularly at this time of the month, and anyone who has had their beard pulled in a fight will sympathise with Cherry. [2] In an infinite universe everything has to happen somewhere. In our world the coin came down the other way up, with similar consequences. [3] In that she thought of herself as a she and pronounced her name "Cheri". Most dwarfs still considered the female pronoun to be almost a swearword. [4] A slightly modified siege engine that he used as a crossbow. [5] Trolls evolved in a colder climate, and their silicon-based brains were constantly running the risk of over-heating in the tempered climate zone that was the Sto plains. [6] New Bridge was the oldest bridge in Ankh-Morpork, but then that sort of tomfoolery is commonplace in cities everywhere. [7] Not uncommon for people from the Aurient, where gold is a lot more common compared with the rest of the world. [8] And thus a farce to be reckoned with. [9] There are tribes in the darkest parts of Howondaland who have perfected the skill of extracting excruciatingly painful and deadly poisons from various plants, beetles and frogs. Even they would be in awe of the seasoned hunter-gatherers who fought one another with the oral equivalents of blow darts and barbs in Ankh-Morpork. The battles were fought at various diplomatic soirées on a daily basis. Vimes had been an unwilling guest at enough such parties to know that the lawyer's retort wouldn't have been a problem even for the Sto Latian ambassador, who was generally considered to be the howler monkey in the jungle that was the Circle Sea's diplomatic community. [10] Mr. Slant was the type of person who spoke to you in a way that had you go home and look in a dictionary before you realised you had been insulted. [11] A very rude troll saying that involves the insertion of menhirs into various caves. 


	4. 4

Sikes and his fellow drivers had parked their trailers outside of "The Imp Arse", known by all professional travellers to be the best inn around on this leg of the journey towards the Hublands. Admittedly, it helped that it was the only inn in the vicinity, but even so it was generally agreed that any competitors would be up against more than they could chew[1] if they tried to take on the Imp Arse's owner and chef. "Carver" Boggis had studied for years for Sham Harga at Harga's House of Ribs before setting up his own establishment, and it hadn't taken long for word to get around.  
  
Now there were always long rows of parked ox carts outside his inn, and the dimly lit dining hall was filled with heavyweight carters doing their best to put him out of business by means of his own Boggin's All-You-Can-Gobble- For-A-Dollar-Menu[2]. They were eating as if it was going out of fashion.  
  
Sikes and C:o were seated along one of the long tables, all of them shovelling thick greyish stew down their hatches at an alarming speed, when all of a sudden there was an godsallmighty crash from outside, followed by frantic mooing. As one man, the drivers and guards got up and ran outside. The oxen were docile creatures, but a stampede was still a possibility, albeit one that no one liked to contemplate.  
  
Horned beasts weighing in at around two thousand pounds each running amok was bad enough in itself, but when they were yoked to carts carrying all sorts of goods - including lamp oil, saltpetre and other chemicals from the mountains - there was no telling where it may all end up.  
  
Sikes elbowed his way through the thong to where the company's carts were parked. What he saw gave him quite a shock. All five of them had crashed to the ground. That in itself wasn't very surprising, since every single wheel seemed to have come off at the same time, and was now lying next to the wagons in the mud.  
  
Everyone stared at the mess, apart from the oxen, who stared back at the assembled group of people with the stupidly apologetic look of bovines everywhere. One of the animals had managed to wrestle free from its yoke and was happily ruminating its way along the roadside.  
  
"That's one lucky ox," said a flabby-looking driver to Sikes' left.  
  
"Nah, mate," retorted another, "One Lucky Ox works in the Curry Gardens back in Ankh-Morpork. He's one of them little guys who do the dishes there, innit?"  
  
The other animals, seeing their more fortunate brother venture further and further away, stirred and mooed, causing the drivers to forget their differences of opinion for now, as they all went to work trying to restore some semblance of order.  
  
In the divers alarum that ensued, no one noticed the rustling in the leaves that went in a straight line towards Ankh-Morpork. Soon that, too, disappeared through the wilted cabbage fields.  
  
-----  
  
"Ugrk," said the gatekeeper, displaying an uncanny insight into either dwarfish literature or his own family tree. Of course, it could also have been a direct reaction to Detritus' cobble-like fist enclosing the troll's throat, such as it were. Cheery looked up at him as he dangled several inches off the ground.  
  
"My colleague will accompany you until I get back," she said, and then added, as an afterthought "Do try not to upset him. He has quite a temper on him if provoked."  
  
The livery-clad cave troll stared at her from his precarious position, fighting to breathe through his cramped-up windpipe. What did der dwarf mean, if provoked?  
  
-----  
  
Vimes strolled across Pseudopolis Yard at a leisurely pace. Having put Slant in his place gave him a warm glow inside, however brief, and he felt his own personal storm clouds disappear while the real ones gathered in the skies above. As he passed the opera house, the wind started howling with renewed gusto.  
  
Well, at least it drowns out the sounds of repetitions from inside the building, Vimes thought to himself. He had been introduced to opera late in life, and didn't have much appreciation for it. But Sybil was an avid fan and had two seats reserved for every performance, and every now and then he couldn't wriggle out of it. As far as he was concerned, the main reasons why people clapped their hands at the end of a show must be that they were well sloshed after the intermission and simply happy that it was over and that they had survived[3].  
  
The wind had driven away even the beggars who normally hung out there, but as he walked past the stairs leading up to the front doors he noticed a kid who sat propped up against the wall with a faraway look in his eyes.  
  
The boy couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old, and he was clearly lagging several meals behind schedule. He was wearing something that may have been clothes at some point in time or another, but it was hard to tell. Now it seemed to consist mainly of lumps of cloth held together by inexpertly applied pieces of string.  
  
Strange, he thought. Normally a kid like that would have been recruited to either the Skats or the Mohocks by now, but he couldn't see any gang insignia on the boy. Then he noticed something else. Next to the youngster stood a flowerpot, and what was strange about it was this: even though the wind was quite strong at the moment, the scraggly plant seemed to move as if for a gentle breeze.  
  
At a glance Vimes thought it looked a bit like a starved rose, but on closer inspection the flowers were rather strange. It was a ferocious- looking thing, its crown petals seemingly a lot sharper than most carnivores' teeth.  
  
Vimes paused. Oh, hells. Anyone with enough smarts to survive on the streets without being engulfed by the gangs deserved a hand up.  
  
"Hey kid!" he called. "Want to earn a dollar?"  
  
The boy looked up with a glint in his eye that said more than a thousand words.  
  
"Get over to that side of the square, and when you see a man come out of the alley behind the watch station you follow him to wherever his going."  
  
"OK. What's he look like, then?"  
  
" Don't worry, you'll know it's him when you see him", Vimes said. "Just make sure you find out where he goes and then come back here and tell whoever is at the reception desk in the watch house and they'll give you a dollar."  
  
"You got it!" The boy stood up, grabbed his pot with the weird-looking plant and made across the square.  
  
Vimes watched him go with something like a smile on his face. That was pretty much the way he'd started out himself, a long, long time ago.  
  
-----  
  
Cheery put her axe back in its sling and walked up towards the main building, an imposing mansion in the old fashioned style. She reached the broad steps leading up to the enormous double-doors and paused there for a second. You heard stories about these people, after all, and now she was about to find out if they were true.  
  
Then she resolutely swallowed the last of her rat snack and walked up and rapped her knuckles on the mature oak frame. The door was opened, and a man that had the word 'butler' written all over him as clearly as if it had been graffiti and he a New York metro station appeared.  
  
"Yes?" he said in a modulated tone of voice.  
  
Unfortunately for Cheery, the metaphorical gangs at large in this particular butler's underground had also seen fit to add another tag to the walls of his frame, and that word was 'vampire'. Cheery felt sure that if this creature had ever come across a black ribbon it was only because it would have used it as a tourniquet on its victims for the sake of etiquette[4]. The vampire butler gave her a smile to rival even Angua's, and waited for her to state her errand or, more likely, turn on her heel and flee for her life.  
  
Instead, Cheery licked her fingers clean from the last of the rat sauce and looked the vampire in the eyes. It was time to put that little theory of hers to the test.  
  
"You know," she said, "Gimlet's Dwarf delicatessen in Cable Street does the meanest Rat á la Gogol you'll find just about anywhere, but this one wasn't bad either. Not bad at all."  
  
The vampire made a sound best described as "gahk!" and staggered backwards into the hallway, away from Cheery, who followed him carelessly, talking continually as she did.  
  
"A breath of fresh air, you might say," she mused. "You'd be wrong, of course, but I can see that you realise this already."  
  
Gagging now, the butler looked as if he was trying to disappear inside himself, crouching in a corner of the entrance.  
  
"Most eateries don't do them properly, but this one - mm-mm!" Cheery licked her lips appreciatively. "I reckon there must've been enough garlic in that sauce to wipe out a medium-sized town in Uberwald. What do you think?"  
  
The vampire was nothing but a quivering heap now. Cheery leaned forward, drawing level with the butler, letting him feel the full blast of her breath.  
  
"I'm sure you understand that there's a lot at stake here," she said," And I'm equally sure that you wouldn't want to interfere with police business, so I'll just see myself in, shall I?"  
  
----------------------- [1] As it were. [2] Unlike most other members of the Boggis family, "Carver" had decided against becoming a thief. The competition wasn't as fierce in the inn keeping business, and there was no Guild looking over your shoulder to see that you went about things in the correct manner when you robbed your customers blind. [3] Much like charter tourists upon landing, in fact. [4] Of late, some vampires in Ankh-Morpork have begun refraining from their traditional fare in order to become more accepted by the other species. They wear a black ribbon to distinguish themselves from their less enlightened brethren. 


	5. 5

Vimes unexpectedly found that his feet had taken him all the way across city to where the Rust family had their town residence.  
  
They often did that, his feet. He would walk along, his mind on something completely different, and then his feet would suddenly call out to his brain over the intercom of the Vimes Express, metaphorically speaking, saying things like "Next stop, 'the Bucket'". With the autumn winds patrolling every avenue before him there weren't that many people about. That suited him perfectly, since it meant that his train of thought wasn't interrupted by train robbers of any kind.  
  
And now his feet had taken him to the Rust's residence. Here, there were street lamps and actual cobblestones in the road paving, and trees lining the street.  
  
This was nothing like the narrow alleys he had come to know over the years, where such things were unheard of. In his part of town, any cobbles lying around would be used as impromptu weapons in gang wars, and lamps taken down and sold for scrap metal as soon as they were put up. The lamp oil would probably be drunk by some optimist, or sold by Dibbler as wonder- inducing elixir of some sort.  
  
He shook his head. Two different worlds, and he was stuck between them whether he wanted to or not.  
  
He looked up at the house. So this is what I've been reduced to, he thought. He could feel the familiar steam building inside him. Chasing after carts. Well, he wasn't called "Vetinari's terrier" for nothing, was he? He rapped his knuckles against the oak door.  
  
-----  
  
There was a knock on the door.  
  
Fred Colon, sitting at the front desk in the station's reception, despondently stirring his coffee, ignored it.  
  
It had been such a nice job, being a traffic cop, but now here he was, back as desk officer again. His eyes followed the movements of the spoon as it sloshed the coffee round and round the discoloured inside of his cup.  
  
It had been a fine cup, once, a gift from a distant cousin who lived in a small town in Uberwald. It had a picture of a rat wearing a straw hat on it, and the caption underneath read "Greetings from Bad Blintz[1]", but now the jolly-looking rat was almost covered in stains and the text had been smudged by several years worth of spilt ersatz-Klatchian[2].  
  
Again came the knock, more insistent this time.  
  
Sergeant Colon looked at the cup and its sludge-like contents again. As he did so, an unusually philosophical thought entered his mind's cathedral with the embarrassed air of a true unbeliever.  
  
Maybe life is like a coffee cup, he thought. We start out in a pristine state, believing in the general goodwill of mice and men[3], but then we get filled to the brim with black unsavoury muck, and this eventually tarnishes us beyond repair? Oh, well. Nothing that a few lumps of sugar couldn't fix.  
  
He picked up three lumps from the little bowl and was just about to add them to his coffee when he heard the door open. He looked up to see a small boy enter, balancing a scraggly potted plant in one hand.  
  
-----  
  
Vimes' hand was still raised, poised for another rap, when the larger gate doors off to the side of the mansion were opened, abruptly. Two footmen in colourful household uniforms came out, holding the doors ajar.  
  
They didn't so much as glance in Vimes direction, but stood to attention on both sides of the gate. This annoyed him, too. He felt that at least his uniform served a purpose, and anyone wearing such garish colours as these two had no business looking down on him, or not looking at him at all, which was worse, somehow. Since there was no answer at the door anyway, he started moving towards the gateway instead.  
  
He was just about to give the footmen a piece of his mind and maybe some of his more callused body parts, too, when the younger Lord Rust suddenly rode out through the gate. Rust was riding what even Vimes recognised to be a very fine steed, before he, Vimes, had to press up against the wall in order not to be ridden down by it.  
  
"Damn beast!" he swore to himself, and it wouldn't have been clear to a listener if he meant the animal or its owner.  
  
-----  
  
"Damn beast!"  
  
Vimes' words were echoed by Cheery as she entered the Dingleberry residence. She had never had much sympathy for the undead, and it was only after befriending Angua that she had come to view them with slightly more tolerance, but you had to draw the line somewhere, she felt.  
  
The vampire had backed off, retching and gasping for air. He didn't look as if would be up to sucking anything out of anyone for at least an hour. This left Cheery to find her own way through the house and to its illusive owner, which suited her just fine.  
  
The door beyond the hall was of a kind she had never encountered in a private home before, but she had seen something like it in a couple of the newfangled Counterweight restaurants that had sprung up around town over the last couple of years. Instead of opening inwards, it slid aside to reveal a large room where obviously expensive furniture was arranged in what she found herself thinking of as a quietly peaceful way.  
  
The tables were almost the right size for a dwarf, but there were no chairs to be seen anywhere. Instead, there were straw mats. Big pots stood here and there, with various types of bamboo growing in an unruly but harmonious fashion. She noticed that the stone walls were hidden behind paper screens, and that the lamps, too, seemed to be made out of lacquered paper. Beyond the room lay a terrace where she could see someone sitting. Cheery moved briskly towards him.  
  
The floorboards squealed melodiously as she crossed the room, but the kneeling figure on the terrace didn't react. She moved closer and stepped through the sliding door and on to the terrace. Beyond it lay a beautiful miniature garden, filled with startling autumn colours. Seated in front of it, facing away from Cheery, was an old man with strands of grey hair whisking in the wind. Apart from that, he was utterly motionless.  
  
"Mr. Dingleberry?" No response. Maybe the man was deaf? She repeated his name slightly louder.  
  
"Mr. Dingle- "  
  
"Ly Tin Wheedle say: Only man with light conscience tleads heavily on a nightingale flool," said the old man, with a voice as light as the last leaf fluttering on a branch, "So you have not come to lob ol bulgle me. Why al you hele, then?  
  
"Oh. Well, sir," she started, "my name is Sergeant Littlebottom and I have come-"  
  
"Little Bottom? Youl name is . . . 'Little Bottom'?"  
  
-----  
  
"What's your name then?" said the boy in a strange tone of voice.  
  
Sergeant Colon paused for a second before realisation dawned. The boy was using that particular, slightly condescending tone that grown ups everywhere use when speaking to little kids.  
  
"I am sergeant Colon," Colon said haughtily, "and wha-"  
  
He didn't get any further, because the boy put his flowerpot on top of a pile of paper on Colon's desk. Sergeant Colon found this slightly disrespectful, since it implied that the paperwork wasn't handled very efficiently - which it wasn't - and that would have been bad enough, but now the vegetable was moving, too. The flower at the end of the stalk had swivelled towards a certain spot on the desk as soon as the boy had put it there. Colon looked on, mesmerised, as the plant bowed down towards the three sugars, ever so slowly.  
  
"Are you in charge here?" the kid asked impatiently. "Only I was told I'd be paid a dollar by whomever was in charge, y'see?"  
  
"What? 'Whomever'? Er . . . Yes?" said Colon, not taking his eyes off the plant as it inched its way towards the unsuspecting lumps.  
  
"Don't you at least wanna know why I was to get a dollar?" The kid looked slightly exasperated, as if the gross stupidity of the grown-up in front of him was really beneath his dignity.  
  
"Er . . . Yes?" It was stalking the sugar lumps. Colon was sure about it now.  
  
The flower was beginning to open what Colon was now thinking of as its jaws, and two leafs were definitely outstretched towards its prey in a way that they hadn't been before.  
  
"The old man with the expensive cigars told me to follow a zombie." The boy was speaking slowly and clearly, like people do when faced with those slow of mind. "Then he told me to come back here and tell someone about it, in return for which I would get a dollar. Now can I report to you or what?"  
  
There was no reaction from Colon, who seemed all but hypnotised by the appearance. Exasperated with the lack of reply, the boy raised his voice in the universal call of coppers everywhere:  
  
"Hey, you!"  
  
-----  
  
"Hey, you!"  
  
Vimes hollered at the rapidly disappearing rider. The footmen remained carefully expressionless, but managed to convey their condescending attitude all the same. Vimes ignored them right back and started to run after the rider. It was useless, and he knew it, but it was instinct as much as anything.  
  
His body protested loudly, and Vimes came to a halt after just a dozen steps. The horse and its rider disappeared in the distance, and when he turned around the footmen were already closing the gate doors behind them, their smug looks giving the steam cooker of Vimes' mind new fuel, causing it to boil violently. He swore under his breath. No way would the door be opened for him now, if he were to knock again.  
  
Oh, well. There was no point in tiring himself like this. A good hunter didn't chase his prey; he went to the right place and waited for it to come to him. And two days before the bunburys there was one place where he was sure to find all of them, sooner or later.  
  
-----  
  
"Yes," said Cheery, her jaws tensing a little, "Cherry Littlebottom. What of it?"  
  
The reply was not was she had expected at all.  
  
"I once have good fliend, back in the old countly. Hel name was One Little Bottom," the man said, a distant smile forming on his lips. "She was like the chelly blossoms in the spling . . ."  
  
Cheery felt her mouth drop open and hurried to shut it. The old man didn't seem to notice anything, his mind's eye still far away in distant lands.  
  
"'Chelly'?" she ventured.  
  
"Yes, chellies. The chelly tlees in the old countly wele levelled fol theil beauty", he explained.  
  
"Oh, you mean cherries!"  
  
"That's what I said," the ancient man confirmed.  
  
Cheery did a quick replay in her mind of what she had heard.  
  
"But why would you level the trees if they were considered beautiful?"  
  
The venerable one didn't react. Instead, he turned back to his garden, his wrinkled features expressionless like bark on an ancient oak.  
  
"We wanted to mally, but hel palents wouldn't allow it, of coulse,"  
  
"Why couldn't you mall . . . er . . . marry, then?" asked Cheery, unable to help herself.  
  
"They wele vely lich, and my family was not," he said simply, looking suddenly directly at Cheery with a world of sadness in his dark eyes.  
  
They looked one another in the eye for a moment or two, the dwarf and the ancient auriental, before the old man's smile transformed his face into that of a friendly yellow grape.  
  
"Hele I sit and leminiscence without shame," he said, with the same disarming smile. "I folget my own head next, as they say hele. What can I do fool you, officel?"  
  
-----  
  
"Fool you, officer? I won't try to fool you, officer," said the boy, although it would have been obvious to a bystander that he could've told Colon just about anything at the moment without the latter knowing whether his young visitor was having him on or not.  
  
"I followed the deadhead to the docks near the Cattle Market down in the Shades," he continued, while Colon tried to look at the boy and not the plant.  
  
It had now satisfied its curiosity with the sugar lumps, and had apparently found them wanting. Instead, it had turned towards Colon's fat fingers, which were drumming nervously on the tabletop. Colon pulled his hands away as quickly as his dignity allowed, almost spilling his coffee in the process.  
  
"He got on the ferry there, and since I didn't have any money I couldn't track him any longer," said the boy, clearly annoyed with this state of affairs. "He did go into a large building near Ankh bridge before that, though."  
  
The boy stopped and looked sharply at Colon, as if trying to figure out if what he had said would get him his dollar or not. Then he seemed to decide that it wouldn't.  
  
"I bet you want to know which house it was, right? On account of you wanting to make further inquiries?"  
  
Still not taking his eyes off the plant in case it begun moving again, Colon tried to focus on what was being said to him for a moment.  
  
"Er . . . Yes? Yes! Yes, of course we will need to know where the deadhe- where the deceased gentleman went," he said, relieved that he was back on seemingly familiar ground again.  
  
"Show me the money, then," said the boy, himself showing a very clear understanding of basic economics.  
  
Colon didn't argue. Instead he leaned down and took out the old, beat up tin box that was the Watch's unofficial treasury. He produced a key from a grubby pocket and opened the box without ever looking away from the vegetable, and then reached inside it for a shiny coin to give to the eagerly outstretched hand, his eyes darting back and forth between the boy and his flower.  
  
-----  
  
Cheery looked from the old man to the flowers in his garden and back again. She realised that this reclusive old man had probably revealed the one reason why he had become so immensely rich to her just because of the coincidence of her name with that of his long lost love. Even so, she was surprised to find that she was moved by his story, and felt sympathetic towards one of the most feared men in all of Ankh-Morpork.  
  
However, she was still cop enough to realise that this unlikely bond would make things easier for her when investigating the case, and even though she disliked herself for thinking like that, she still knew that she would have to use this fact in order to get what she wanted. She had to mine ore while the lamp wick still shone.  
  
"It is wheely difficult," the old man said, suddenly.  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
"This whole business with the cheliot laces, I mean", he continued. "That is what you came hele to ask about, is it not?"  
  
Cheery's mining train of thought was not only interrupted, but it seemed to her as if it had its contents spilled out in front of the ancient man, too. She decided to chance it.  
  
"You are right, sir, it is," she admitted, and took a deep breath. "The Watch would like access to your family's stables and other facilities in order to try to secure evidence that could lead us to the perpetrator of the crime committed against you and your relatives."  
  
She had practised the sentence in her mind on the way there, but now it seemed clumsy and officious even to her own ears. She winced inwardly.  
  
The old man's brow creased even more, even though this was hard to achieve, but he remained quiet. He looked at her until Cheery felt sure that she would be asked to leave, and then the wrinkles were rearranged anew. It took her a couple of seconds to realise that he was now smiling at her.  
  
"My nephew is not hele at the moment. He would gleatly disapplove of this, but you shall have what you ask fol, officel Little Bottom," he said. "I will make an exception in honol of the chellies that wele, fol the chellies that al."  
  
-----  
  
"Is that all?" the kid asked, disbelief displayed loud and clear as he looked at the coin in his hand. "A measly shilling for all my work?"  
  
Sergeant Colon forced himself to look away from the plant and took a closer look at the grubby little palm, where, indeed, nothing but a ten penny coin was to be seen. Then he looked back inside the box, which he already knew to be empty. In his mind's eye he saw a face like a convention of spots and boils, connected loosely with a body like that of a skinned chimpanzee: Nobby[4]. Colon was at a loss for words. The withering look the boy was giving him in combination with the snaking movements of the mean-looking vegetable had him bullied into silence.  
  
"Well? Where's the rest of my money?"  
  
"That's the King's shilling," came a voice from behind Colon, "and the act of accepting it means that you are now officially a watchman. Isn't that right, Sergeant?"  
  
Angua stepped out from the shadows of the staircase.  
  
----------------------- [1] It was said that the people of Bad Blintz lived in harmony with a clan of highly intelligent rats, but Colon was sure that that was just a load of backwater nonsense. Really! People were willing to do anything to attract tourists these days. [2] Proper Klatchian coffee can only be drunk in thimble-sized cups, since it is strong enough to make the drinker knurd - a state of mind somewhere well beyond the borders of sanity. [3] Steinbeck would have been proud of Colon. [4] Corporal Nobbs had always been one to have a liberal view of other people's property, and ever since the games had been announced it had been virtually impossible to keep him away from the tea money. The betting shops were doing brisk business already, and it was an educated guess that the money-shaped hole in the time-space continuum inside the shoebox was compensated for in one of the bookmakers' stalls outside the Hippo. 


	6. 6

Stepping into the sun of the square, Vimes was more than a little out of breath. The Hippo was located as far away from the Yard as the Rust residence, but in the exact opposite direction, and Vimes' lungs were protesting. He swore quietly over his complaining muscles and spat a gob of Panatela-induced mucus on the ground, but then gave in and stood, breathing deeply, trying to recover from the quick trot through town.  
  
As he stood there, he let his eyes gaze over the scene in front of him. The stadium was simply huge, one of the largest buildings in town. The main entrance to the imposing behemoth was in the middle of the side of its oblong shape, all marble pillars and stairs. It would be closed at this time, he knew. After all, the main entrance was there to give the paying public access to the spectator stands during the actual races, and the practice sessions were never open to the public until the day before the race, at least not officially.  
  
Of course, as Vimes well knew, all the professional gamblers and betting shops would still try to gain inside information by all means possible. But they had their own channels and would certainly not be seen with the punters who even now were gathering outside the locked gates, jostling with black marketeers for tickets.  
  
Off to the side, where the oblong shape curved off, lay the entrance used by the teams and various other staff who did have access to the arena. Here, too, the crowds were beginning to gather, but the people here were content with trying to sneak a peak at their favourites, and Vimes had no great difficulty in making his way through the colourfully clad supporters.  
  
Several sturdy-looking fellows were standing guard in front of the gates here, too, but Vimes' badge together with his positive take on life and the head guard's throat overcame that obstacle in a matter of seconds, and he was shown into a dark passage leading into the arena itself.  
  
He opened a second sturdy wooden gate and suddenly he was inside the Hippodrome. For a second he just stood and gaped in awe. The building looked big from the outside, but seeing the vast, empty space of the arena made him realise just how big a place had to be in order to be able to seat fifty thousand people.  
  
The track itself was impressive, too. In the middle of the arena was a central reservation. On it was a row of statues of hippopotami made of gilded wood, balanced on poles and glowing in the cold afternoon sun, and around it was the track. It was very wide, and several people, insect-like in the distance, were busy raking the sand, making the surface flat for the next practice run. Off to one side of the track hung a strange, big contraption made of wicker that Vimes assumed had to be the starting- stalls.  
  
The spectator stands were separated from the action by means of hurdle fences. Another pair of wide wooden gates under the civic box led away from the stadium.  
  
A small, hunched figure was working away, rake in hand, not far from where he was standing. He hadn't noticed him at first, but now Vimes made his way towards the man, taking care not to walk on the part of the sand that he had gone over already.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
The little man looked up without much interest. He was bald as a coot and dressed in loose-fitting clothes that might once have been yellow. If he was surprised to see a policeman entering his stadium, he didn't show it.  
  
"Excuse me," Vimes repeated, since the man with the rake seemed disinclined to open his mouth, "Can you tell me where I can find Lord Rust?"  
  
The little man lifted a finger from the rake and pointed vaguely towards the gates underneath the civic box.  
  
"Stables", he muttered.  
  
"Thank you, my good man", Vimes nodded. "Very nice talking to you."  
  
Oh gods, he thought as he proceeded towards the civic box. The man hadn't even questioned who he was. If that was the kind of security they had here, then his job was going to be next to impossible.  
  
The space inside was dark after having been outside in the bright afternoon sun, but the nightmarish sounds and a certain flatulent component to the air indicated that he had indeed arrived in some kind of stable.  
  
-----  
  
The famous Dingleberry stables were located in a separate corner of the estate, hidden from the main building by a row of fiery red ash trees. It was built in the same Agatean style as the mansion, and Cheery half expected the horses inside it to be eating from mangers that had had their legs cut off, too.  
  
Outside the stable was a bandy-legged little man, not much taller than Cheery. He was staggering underneath an enormous bale of hay, wiry muscles fighting to keep it upright. Cheery proceeded towards the entrance, wondering what human etiquette had to say about striking up conversations with strangers in situations such as this. She reached the open door and then stood there wondering what to do. But then the man stumbled on a fallen pitchfork and toppled over in front of Cheery in a manner that the Guild of Clowns and Jesters would charge a considerable sum of money for, thus neatly solving the problem for her.  
  
"Here, can I help you up?" she said in the general direction of the impromptu haystack.  
  
The man looked balefully at the outstretched hand, but then seemed to realise that whatever standing he might have had was already lost, and so couldn't be hurt by him accepting help.  
  
"What the hay," he said, accurately. "Thanks." "I'm alone here today. Got a lot to do," he added with an apologetic shrug and a toothy smile.  
  
"Don't mention it," Cheery replied. "Manuel Labora? Mr Dingleberry said you'd be here to show me around. Are you alright?"  
  
"Ay, that's me alright." Labora picked a couple of straws from his hair. "And you are?"  
  
"Sergeant Littlebottom, Forensic Department, City Watch," said Cheery, flashing her badge to the man. That sounded a lot better, she thought. She'd have to remember that.  
  
"Aha. Here about the sabotage, I take it?"  
  
"Yes," she confirmed, whilst making a mental note of the word sabotage, "I need to inspect the crime scene and ask some questions."  
  
-----  
  
"First of all I want to know if you think he noticed you following him," Angua said.  
  
She had taken over after Sergeant Colon, who had gratefully accepted her suggestion that he go and check the latest clacks. Angua didn't pay much attention to the plant. She had immediately recognised it for what it was. After all, she too was a carnivore. Instead she concentrated on the boy in front of her.  
  
"Did he spot you?" she repeated.  
  
"Nuh-uh. He was in too much of a hurry," came the self-confident reply. "Besides, I've read about how it's supposed to be done. I know all there is to tailing someone!"  
  
"Really?" This surprised Angua a little. Education wasn't something that was forced on just anyone. You had to be upper middle-class at least to get an education beyond a ding around the ear when you did something that your master disapproved of, and then you were still among those privileged enough to have an apprenticeship. Even the upper echelons of society were still largely illiterate, even though the Guilds were slowly changing this. Finding a street urchin who could read was akin to stumbling over a fish that could play the piano.  
  
"So how come you know how to read? Who taught you that?"  
  
The boy, who obviously was used to disbelief when he divulged this information, looked at her indignantly.  
  
"You don't believe me? I can prove it!"  
  
"I didn't say I didn't believe you," Angua said, patiently, "I just wanted to know who taught you, but if you don't want to tell me that's fine. I have other, more important things to ask you about."  
  
-----  
  
"What the hells are you doing here?"  
  
The angry voice rang out in the small, busy stable yard. The voice was that of a man who wasn't only used to being obeyed, but whose orders were feared and whom the obeyees hated, something which the voice's owner knew and enjoyed.  
  
Vimes, who had made his way through the stables, continued towards the speaker, seemingly not noticing the paralysing effect the man's voice had had on all the people around them. There were stable-boys, blacksmiths, drivers and all sorts of hangers-on everywhere, but the green-clad young man had caused them all to seize doing whatever it was they had been doing the moment before, and now they all stared in shock at Vimes, strolling carelessly through the scene.  
  
"Did you not hear me?! Who the hells let you in here!?"  
  
"Rust Junior, isn't it?" asked Vimes in a friendly voice. "Can I have a word with you?"  
  
"I am Lord Archibald Rust, yes," said the voice's owner haughtily. "Thirty- first lord of the Rust line."  
  
Spitting a gob in the sawdust at the man's feet, Vimes got out his cigar case and chose one for himself.  
  
"The "Rust line", eh? Sounds a bit like a skid mark to me, but I suppose you make those all the time, in the arena, so that's really quite fitting, isn't it?"  
  
There was a nervous titter from one of the stable hands. Vimes bit off the end of the cigar. Young Rust's face darkened.  
  
"How dare you insult my ancestors and my own person?!"  
  
Vimes didn't answer the question at first. Instead he got out his tinderbox and begun lightening the cigar.  
  
"Well, Archie, I suspect that you know about me already, so I don't suppose there is much of a chance for us to get along any old how. I'm just cutting to the chase here, as it were."  
  
Vimes took a drag on the freshly lit cigar and inhaled, causing an immediate protest from his lungs. He coughed.  
  
"Take my advice and don't take up smoking. It's not good for your health."  
  
"I'll tell you what isn't good for your health, Vimes," hissed the lording, his eyes black with rage, "Coming in here and acting like you owned the place, ridiculing me in front of my people, now that's something that can seriously affect your health!!"  
  
-----  
  
The problem with horses, Cheery figured, was that they only looked nice and cuddly at a distance. Up close, the muscular, mad-eyed creatures were terrifying, biting, snorting, and kicking demons from the deepest pits of the underworld. Steel-rimmed hooves the size of dinner plates were decidedly intimidating at any rate, and sitting as they did at the end of legs belonging to animals bred for the sole purpose of moving said legs really fast didn't do anything to alleviate her fears. It was enough to scare a krun'hark[1]. She stuck close to the stable-hand as they moved down the hall, flanked by boxes, as he led her through the stables to where the chariots were stored.  
  
"You know," she said, "I heard about this old Ephebian king who bred horses and supposedly fed them human flesh. I reckon this is what he must have been aiming for."  
  
"Aye, they are splendid-looking animals, are they not?" answered Manuel, stopping to give one of them a pat. The horse availed itself of some straw still stuck in his hair.  
  
"So the only way in to the chariots is via the main entrance and through the stables?"  
  
"Aye. Either that or over the wall, of course," said Manuel, indicating the ten-feet-high construction that surrounded the grounds. "Only problem then would be getting past Vladimir, of course."  
  
"The butler?"  
  
"Aye. He has the grounds to himself during the night." Labora shuddered slightly. "Better'n a whole pack o' hounds, too. He's never done me any harm, mind, but let me tell you, it isn't easy going to sleep knowing his out here."  
  
Cheery nodded. She couldn't blame the man.  
  
-----  
  
"You can't blame me for asking, though," Angua repeated.  
  
"Well, if you really have to know I taught myself how to read," the boy said, "All these newspapers, see? When you sleep on the streets there's nothing better for keepin' warm, yeah? I always liked looking at the pictures, and one day I got to lookin' at the text . . ."  
  
----------------------- [1] The mass-produced toy industry in Ankh-Morpork had never taken off, and the following likening would therefore have been completely useless to Cheery, but those horses were to My Little Pony what a living, breathing Tyrannosaurus Rex would have been if seated next to Barney. 


End file.
